clash, empty and full
by ElasticBobaTurtle
Summary: As he watches her delicate face contorting he finds that maybe there is a sense to her wild color and controversy, and it all works beautifully. Saisaku.


I don't know where this came from...but here's some Saisaku for you. Still exploring Sai's character; not quite sure if I got it right...:/

* * *

She's a dissonant clash of life that doesn't make sense on his calm canvas. Even at first glance, the pink and green are screaming out like spring, and he can't take his eyes off of her. 

It shouldn't work; there's no balance in the colors, there's no sense in the way she outright contradicts herself - her gentle voice but firm hand (and smashing fist), her sad smile but burning, hopeful eyes. He's a child lost in a room full of soft marvel who doesn't know where to begin.

But she takes his hand, even without his permission. How she dares to reach there, he can't comprehend. Even worse, he doesn't resist.

She says one thing but does another. She threatens to beat him up (and follows through half the time), but heals him with all the chakra left in her exhausted body, crying tears over him in the pouring rain when he's stupid enough to get a hole in his stomach (but that can't compare with the empty gnawing always in his chest). Somehow, she understands the nameless monster he fights, and she smiles for him in the rare moments, when nobody else is watching.

It makes him wonder who broke her, that she'd be able to understand him.

-

He's like a blur of shadow and light that doesn't make sense in the wrecked landscape of her heart. At first glance: the dark hair and pale skin and full lips screaming out like a mad memory, and she can't take her eyes off of him.

It's not fair, her heart mourns. At first she hates him for it: for being the reminder of her failure, her catalyst of destruction. (She always blows up when he's around, despite her greatest efforts to remain calm, cool, collected. A casually tossed insult from him can detonate her) But he's also the key to her reconstruction, she realizes, the first time she sees his real smile.

The process of rebuilding is painful and slow, but she's willing to endure.

He betrays her in the beginning for whatever ulterior motives those black pool eyes of his hide (or maybe there's nothing in them?). It scares her that it hurts as much the sight of _his_ retreating back on the cold path leading into darkness. She doesn't even _know _him and he can hurt her so badly. He is a dangerous child.

But she gathers him near, because she knows he is hurting and she has never been one to deny someone in pain. Healer's instinct, some would call it. (Others term it 'love,' but what do they know? she scoffs) There is blood leaking from his palms, from small marks of suffering that he doesn't show anyone. But she knows, and she knows that his empty eyes are really full of something.

She's determined to find out what.

-

It's a normal day, but it's not, because this is the first time he finds her crying. He has come to her for the answer to some silly social question (because she always seems to have the answer to those kinds of things) but the question flees his mind when he finds her alone in her bed, sobbing miserably. Silent tear tracts glisten in the dull gloom of her room.

He has never seen her cry. It's a strange and frightening sight; because he has never seen her look so weak and vulnerable, and it's a bit disconcerting knowing what's underneath the strong and steady wall she builds in the daylight for Naruto and herself.

When she realizes he is there, she hastily wipes her face with the back of her hand. She manages a tremulous smile and asks him what's wrong, but it doesn't erase the blatant redness of her eyes or the sad swollenness.

What _is _wrong, he wonders, as he looks at her with pink matted hair sticking out in all the wrong directions and her mouth a broken, quivering line.

He blinks and stands with his feet apart and his hands at his side, awkward stance. But the strangest thing is that he knows what to do, for once. Coincidentally, it's nothing from the hundreds of books he's read, but some small, clear voice inside that quietly instructs. He walks over to her and sits on the edge of the bed. She looks like she is going to fall to pieces any second now, as she teeters ever so slightly away from him.

"You are sad," he says simply, and there's a look of surprise that flits across her face when she realizes he's defined an emotion correctly for once. "You are afraid."

Her lips quiver harder and she looks away, hands twisting themselves torturously in the bed sheets. Her eyes close and there's a pained expression on her face, and as he watches her delicate face contorting he finds that maybe there is a sense to her wild color and controversy, and it all works beautifully.

"Yes," she finally exhales, puff of air. "You are right."

And Sai finds that he isn't so empty after all.

-

He gives her a picture the next morning. It's a blue water lily drenched in shadows – but there's a slant of morning light touching the opening petals, on the gentle edges; and her smile is like a tentative petal itself unfolding.

She holds it out at arms length and looks at it for a long while, before hugging it delicately to her chest.

"Thank you," she says, sincerely. The directness of her gaze strikes him for reasons he can't place. He shrugs and says it's nothing, that it was a piece of junk that he couldn't bear to look at any longer, so he figured she could have it. He doesn't tell her that he'd slaved over it the whole sleepless night, thinking of her crying silently and alone. It was like discovering the other side of the moon, a whole new dimension – and in discovering the new craters and dips; he has found a reflection of himself.

She hangs it in the living room over the couch and the next time he enters her apartment it is the first thing he sees. There's a strange feeling knowing that a part of him is hanging on her walls, but it's not a bad feeling.

-

He is fascinated, watching the pale green glow emitted from her hands dancing softly on her cheeks. But this isn't the time for fascination, his ninja instincts tell him; the enemy could attack at any moment, from any angle, and yet he can't tear his eyes from the sight.

She cradles the child closer, a little trembling girl with wide brown eyes who whimpers softly. There's a purely maternal look as Sakura smoothes the girl's rumpled hair, gathering her closer.

"Shhh," she murmurs, and the girl scrunches her face into the crook of Sakura's neck. Sakura brings her hands up to the wound on the girl's neck where blood is smeared, the green glow reawakening. "It'll be alright."

His gaze never wavers as he watches the wound slowly disappear under her magical touch. The girl's whimpering quiets and she clings tightly to Sakura's shirt. Sakura is smiling slightly as she hugs the child, but there's a look of deep sadness reflected in the green of her eyes.

"Poor thing," she whispers.

Sai doesn't understand why he feels cold and warm all at once, watching her. There's a chill breaking out on his skin, like the sight of this is a memory he can never quite recover. A small frown tugs at his lips, but when Sakura turns her questioning eyes to meet his, he forces his lips upwards into that comfortable, fake smile.

-

Later when the mission is over and they return home, he confronts her.

"Why did you heal her?" His question is direct.

She blinks, confused and surprised. "What, you mean the little girl?"

He nods. "It did not further the completion of the mission; it endangered our position; it further depleted your chakra; but nevertheless, you healed her."

Sakura stares at him, and he has the odd tingling awareness of being alien and wrong. There's a slightly sad curve to her lips as she answers him, speaking softly, slowly. Like _he's _the child.

"Sai, she was hurt, lost, and afraid. What more could I do?"

And the way she looks at him as she says it is like an arrow piercing his heart, because he knows just what she means.

-

"Sai, what are you _doing_?" she hisses, while trying unsuccessfully to squirm out of his grip. He has taken a firm hold of her wrist and is leading her down the path away from the hospital. This does not please Sakura. She has just finished a particularly exhausting seven hour shift, thanks to an emergency arrival 12 minutes prior to the time she was _supposed _to have been released. The only thing she wants right now is a nice, warm, relaxing bubble bath, followed by a numb collapse into bed. She most certainly isn't in the mood for whatever antics her strange teammate is up to.

But of course, being the incredibly polite individual he is, Sai offers no reply to her question and continues leading her down the path. At some point, since he doesn't appear to be relinquishing his grip anytime soon, and she's dead tired and her curiosity is starting to get the better of her, she stops struggling. He senses this and his grip slackens, until she is following meekly at his heels, head down and grumbling softly to herself.

Sai stops so abruptly that she bumps lightly into his back. Sakura looks up and blinks, realizing where he has taken her.

It's the bridge.

Red with memories and delightful screaming, it has been the most complicated and simple structure of her life. The river is sweeping away a vibrant mass of fallen autumn leaves on the smooth running current and for a moment Sakura, dazed, is captivated by the sight.

Then her eyes turn to Sai, questioning. He stares calmly back, and his eyes are still and calm as ever, unshakable black liquid.

"I want to show you something," he says finally. She blinks, a little dumbfounded and not even trying to conceal her disbelief. He turns around, back facing her, while her eye begins to twitch in irritation.

"You brought me all the way out _here_ to show me something? This had better be important. Honestly, Sai, why couldn't you have just—"

She stops, her growing anger cut short.

He has turned around to face her, and…

He's smiling.

Her mouth closes promptly shut and she swallows her words.

This smile doesn't crinkle his eyes into insincere little crescents, but presses, hesitantly at the ends of his lips – like he's barely sure of himself, but he's struggling to break through. It reminds her of tentative morning light, born for the first time. His open eyes stare directly into hers and for a moment she feels her heart drop into her stomach.

It's a slight, beautiful expression, and heartbreaking because it's so undeniably _real_.

"I've been practicing," he says, softly. She barely hears what he's saying because she's so transfixed.

"Sai," she breathes, and she doesn't know why she feels the sudden rush of tears pricking behind her eyes or the strange lightening of her heart.

He blinks when he feels her small, warm frame barreling into his and her face buried into his shoulder as she suddenly unravels into a flurry of sobs. His hand absentmindedly finds the small of her back as he stands still, letting her cry.

She has scrunched her face into the crook of his neck, and he's reminded, suddenly, of the lost little girl in the woods. And he wonders, faintly, if he can ever heal her like she's healed him.

She looks up suddenly, the tears streaming from her eyes as she stares up into his face. He catches a tear and inspects the droplet in his hand, slightly warm.

"Are you sad?" he asks. "Is that why you are…crying?"

She shakes her head, a smile stretching her cheeks and squeezing her eyes in a paradoxical expression he's never quite seen; will probably never understand. "No, Sai, not anymore."

His eyes aren't empty. She's found herself in them.

* * *

yup...just like everything else, makes absolutely no sense and is driven by ZERO PLOT! yay! 

oh well, just needed to get that out of my system...:D


End file.
